


one handspan away

by coffeecrush



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Attempt at Humor, Choi Beomgyu Being A Little Shit, Enemies to Lovers, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Humor, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Rivalry, Romance, Sharing Clothes, Sort Of, i keep forgetting to add tags fml, it’s just dumb gay boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25485823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeecrush/pseuds/coffeecrush
Summary: There’s something so very exhilarating about sharing a room with someone who wants to rip your throat out. Beomgyu convinces himself that the reason he has taken it upon himself to be the bane of his roommate’s existence is because of the rush of euphoria that comes from being the cause of said roommate’s demise (just as it once used to be) andnotbecause Choi Yeonjun looks really fucking hot when he’s mad.Of course not.Alternatively: Beomgyu and Yeonjun meet (again) in university. Beomgyu is as annoying as ever, and Yeonjun is as annoyed as ever. Nothing much has changed, really. Except this time, there might be some feelings involved. Oh, and they’re roommates.Oh mygod, they’re roommates.
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 40
Kudos: 360





	one handspan away

**Author's Note:**

> hello there! this is my first time writing a fic for this fandom, and my first fic in a while tbh so i’m a little nervous ^^” 
> 
> either way, i’m actually somewhat satisfied with the way this one turned out, so hopefully you have as much fun reading as i did while writing <3 
> 
> please excuse any mistakes and typos i might have overlooked while editing, and enjoy! 
> 
> edit: i made a few minor changes to the description since i’ve been wanting to for a while now so if you’re revisiting for some reason and the summary looks a little different, this is why! 
> 
> edit #2: i decided to read this in full for the first time since its posting and i made a few changes in phrasing & dialogue throughout the course of the fic so i hope that makes for a smoother read or re-read! 
> 
> (title from ‘20cm’ by txt)

“I really don’t understand why you’re packing so much when you’re going to start stealing my clothes two weeks in.” 

“Hush, hyung, let the midget work in peace. If he’s deluded himself into thinking that his clothes have any value, then so be it.” 

“Okay, first of all,” Beomgyu starts, abandoning his suitcase in favour of regarding his friends with a disgruntled frown, “I won’t borrow any of your clothes for the first month now that you’ve said that,” he says, shooting Soobin an accusatory glance. The older boy holds up his hands in mock surrender, but Beomgyu isn’t quite done. “Although it _is_ my prerogative as your _best friend,_ ” he drags out the title so as to stress on its importance, “so I don’t really know why you’re making such a big deal out of it.” 

“Best friends don’t steal each other’s clothes, hyung, that’s more of a couple thing,” Kai supplies from where he’s perched on the foot of Beomgyu’s bed. He shrieks when Soobin shoves him with his foot, the blow tipping him off balance and sending him toppling over the edge of the bed. 

“That’s what you get for trying to be a smartass, I suppose,” Taehyun states as he gazes down at the pitiful lump on the floor that is Kai Kamal Huening. Both his voice and his eyes are devoid of even the slightest hint of emotion, which only adds to the hilarity of his comment. 

Beomgyu makes a huge show of gagging exaggeratedly. “Imagine dating Soobin hyung,” he shudders at the thought, but before Soobin can get a word in edgewise, he turns to where Taehyun is perched on his revolving study chair. “Oh, and screw you, Kang Taehyun—you’re literally shorter than me. What gives _you_ the right to call _me_ a midget?” 

_“It is my prerogative as your best friend,”_ Taehyun repeats solemnly. Beomgyu tosses a sweater at him. 

“Either way,” Soobin intervenes, “you know I’m only joking, right? You can borrow my clothes anytime.” 

“Borrow,” Taehyun repeats impassively. Beomgyu shoots him the most venomous glare he can muster. He turns back to Soobin then, the hard expression donning his countenance softening at the sight of the benign smile on the older’s face. “Thanks, hyung,” he smiles, “but I’ll try to stick to my own as much as I can.” 

“Try,” Kai is the one who says it this time, still in a sad heap on the floor. Beomgyu narrows his eyes at the boy threateningly. 

“Okay, enough about clothes now!” Soobin claps his hands, excitement etched clearly onto his features. “How are you guys feeling about starting university?” 

“Terrified,” Beomgyu answers. Taehyun snorts in amusement. “But I don’t think it’ll be all that bad, especially if I have you guys by my side.” 

“ _Awww,_ is our dearest Beomgyu hyung going soft on us?” 

“One more word and I’m going to throw you out of the window, Hyuka. I would watch my mouth if I were you.” 

“You sure your noodle arms can even pick him up, hyung?” Taehyun sniffs, busy inspecting his nails. 

“Soobin hyung,” Beomgyu tries to appeal to the oldest with what he hopes is a convincing enough puppy face, “they’re bullying me.” 

“Deserve,” Soobin replies without so much as looking up from his phone.

“I hope you know that there is nothing I dislike in this world more than you guys.” 

“The sentiment is returned fully, hyung,” Kai informs with an angelic smile.

Beomgyu sticks his tongue out at the youngest. It takes Kai a split second to do the same back at him.

“Children,” Taehyun mumbles, heaving an exasperated sigh, “I’m friends with children.” 

🍁

“Is that all? _Please_ tell me that’s all.” 

Beomgyu skips down the porch for what is probably the thirtieth time that day, the bag that he carries dangling happily from his loose grip. “Just this last one!” he says in reply to the question Kai had huffed out, passing the opulent designer bag to the boy (who very much looks like his arms are about to fall off). 

Kai’s shoulders sag as they’re weighed down by the heaviness of the bag and he groans loudly in displeasure. “Hyung, literally _what_ are _in_ these things?” he hisses as he attempts to squeeze the bag into the limited space left in the trunk, ignoring Beomgyu’s panicked, _“Careful with that one!”_ He slams the door shut with slight difficulty and wraps his arms around the back of the car protectively. “No more,” he growls at the oldest. 

Beomgyu is about to retaliate when he sees Kai’s eyes flit upwards to something behind him.

“Wow,” Soobin laughs, the breath he lets out rustling the hair at the back of Beomgyu’s head. He places a hand on the younger’s shoulder, ignoring the face he pulls before saying, “you actually managed to make all of Gyu’s stuff fit?” 

“ _Hey,_ ” Beomgyu starts defensively, “stop exaggerating, there wasn’t _that_ much—” 

“A couple more kilograms and the car wouldn’t have been able to move,” Taehyun informs, head poking out of the passenger side window. He waves his phone in the air as illustration, “I looked it up. Either that, or the trunk would’ve fallen off. That would have been fun to see.” 

“Your stuff is in here too,” Kai points out. Taehyun offers him an indifferent shrug, apparently impervious to the possibility of losing his belongings. “Would be worth it if I got to see Beomgyu hyung cry about losing the twenty pairs of converse he has in the exact same design but in different colours.” 

“That’s oddly specific,” Soobin observes. “You sure he hasn’t planned something?” he asks, turning to Kai for an answer. 

“No idea. _But,_ ” the youngest says, his lips stretching into a wretched smile, “that _would_ be fun to witness.” 

“I hate it here,” Beomgyu declares. Soobin offers him an empathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder. 

“You’ll be seeing them less often now, anyway, hang in there for a few more days,” he tells him. 

“Until then, though,” Taehyun interjects, regarding him with a saccharine smile that masks evil intentions, “bring another bag or something, will you? It’s a long journey from here to Seoul and seeing you cry will definitely make it more entertaining.” 

Beomgyu ignores him, turning his head to the side until Soobin comes into view. “What was your roommate like in your first year?” 

“Horrible,” Soobin replies. Sensing the younger’s disquietude, he smiles warmly in an effort to allay his fears. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll get a bad one too. I have a really nice one this year—it really just depends on your luck.” 

“Well, I guess I’m in danger then,” Beomgyu chuckles nervously, shrugging the older’s hand off his shoulder as he walks towards the car. He opens the door to the driver’s seat, leaning over to check whether the CDs he always keeps in Soobin’s car are there or not. On confirming that they are, he pulls himself out of the car, but not before reaching over the gear to ruffle Taehyun’s hair. He ignores the younger’s grumble of disapproval as he retracts his hand and moves away. “We all know that the odds have literally never been in my favour. Like, _ever._ ” 

“Oh, remember that one time—” Kai starts gleefully, but he doesn’t make it any farther than that, dropping the topic in favour of ducking out of the way to avoid the empty water bottle Beomgyu hurls at him. 

“Everyday Beomgyu hyung wakes up and chooses violence,” Taehyun laments, shaking his head somberly.

“Either way,” Soobin interrupts before Beomgyu finds something else to toss at someone, “I’m sure you’ll end up with a compatible roommate, Gyu. Tolerable, at worst.” 

“I certainly hope so,” Beomgyu mutters nervously as he clambers into the backseat. Kai joins him a moment later, after making sure that they won’t actually lose all of their luggage. 

Soobin climbs into the driver’s seat a beat later, and once they’re all strapped in, he turns on the engine and after one too many ‘goodbye’s exchanged between them and Beomgyu’s mother, they’re off. (If Beomgyu tears up at some point while his mother frets over him and his friends, no one has to know.) 

The three-hour journey is filled with laughter, music and yelling. Yet, even with all the noise, Beomgyu finds it difficult to dismiss the growing uneasiness that settles in the pit of his stomach. He tries to convince himself that it’s simply his nerves acting up and that it’s completely natural to feel this way when beginning a new chapter in life. 

He can’t quite tamp down the voice that lingers at the back of his mind, telling him that it isn’t just that. 

🍁

Beomgyu knocks tentatively on Soobin’s door, praying with all his being that he’s got the right room because he isn’t mentally prepared for the awkward interaction that he will inevitably have to face if he’s in the wrong place. 

He jumps when he hears a very audible _thud_ from beyond the door which is followed by a high-pitched yelp that has him sighing in relief, because only one person can produce a sound like that. 

The door swings open to reveal a very disheveled Kai; the absolute mess his overgrown hair is in leaves Beomgyu torn between wanting to laugh at the absurdity of the sight and grimace in pity. He reaches up to pat the boy on the shoulder, lips stretched into a commiserating smile as his hand moves from the younger’s shoulder to his head in an effort to pat the untamed locks into place (not that it’s really working).

“D’you get on Tyun’s nerves again?” he jokes, tugging on a lock that sticks out in an arbitrary direction, in a manner not much different from that of a horn. The harsh pull draws a wince from the boy and he makes a futile effort of swatting Beomgyu’s intrusive hand away. Beomgyu dodges the younger’s swinging hand and resumes his efforts until Kai grabs a hold of his bony wrist and all but drags him into the room, kicking the door shut behind them. 

Beomgyu’s gaze sweeps across the space and he notes that, predictably, it isn’t much different from his own. Although, he didn’t quite get to inspect his own room thoroughly enough due to the circumstances he had been met with, so he decides to do so with Soobin’s instead. The design is mostly the same, anyway. 

Amid the darkness that had greeted Beomgyu back in his own room, he had managed to discern the outlines of two beds on either of the room’s extremities, although the fact that he hadn’t been able to test their plushness disappoints him still. He had also managed to make out the desk that was a few paces away from the foot of his bed, sandwiched in between the bed and a decent-sized cupboard and mirrored by an identical one on the other side. And the last thing that his strained eyesight had caught onto was the lining of a window all the way on the other end of the room, visible only because it was illuminated by the orange glow of the evening sun, most of which was kept out by the curtains that had been drawn firmly across the window. 

As Beomgyu looks around Soobin’s room scrupulously, he notices a few things that he had missed—for instance, the window that he had seen is actually farther back than he had initially suspected, and it was situated in a snug niche sort of thing at the opposite end of the room. He hadn’t registered the segmentation in his own room at all, which is why it momentarily catches him off-guard, especially when he sees that the bathroom is adjacent to it. 

He’s so caught up in his analysis that he doesn’t realise he’s being called until Kai quite literally snaps him out of his trance by snapping his fingers in front of his face. Beomgyu jerks away from the younger’s huge hand, his eyes flitting to his face with furrowed eyebrows that scream, _‘What?’_

Taehyun is the one that answers his unasked question though, and so Beomgyu’s gaze settles on him instead. “Dude, we’ve been calling you for the past minute,” the redhead tells him from his spot on what Beomgyu assumes is Soobin’s bed. Beomgyu glances back at Kai for confirmation and receives a nod and a cocked eyebrow as an answer. 

“Sorry, I was looking around. I couldn’t get a proper look at my room,” he explains, padding over to Soobin’s desk. He knows it belongs to him because he sees the framed photographs that line the side of the table, several of them featuring Beomgyu himself, along with Kai and Taehyun, of course. His fingers trace the embellishments on one of the frames—the one that the four of them had decorated for fun in art class several years ago. For whatever reason, Soobin had never discarded it. Beomgyu feels warmth blooming inside of him at the small detail. 

From this, he determines that this is Soobin’s side of the room and that Taehyun is sprawled out on the correct bed, thankfully. He glances over to the other side of the room and notices that the older’s roommate has personalised his side with framed photographs and such of his own. He supposes that’s one difference between his room and Soobin and roommate’s—the fact that the latter was decorated from corner to corner with an assortment of paraphernalia, whereas in Beomgyu’s room, while he could faintly distinguish the tracings of posters on his roommate’s side, his own remained painfully barren. (Not that it was going to stay that way for longer than a day, of course; the posters rolled up neatly in one of his twelve backpacks tell another tale.) 

“What do you mean?” Kai questions quizzically, seating himself backwards onto the chair attached to Soobin’s desk. 

“My roommate was—” 

Just then, the bathroom door swings open and Soobin steps out, trailed by small clouds of steam. Beomgyu concludes from this detail and the towel that Soobin runs through his hair that the boy had taken an unnecessarily hot shower. He’s about to bully the life out of the older for taking one during a summer month, but Soobin’s previously wandering eyes fall on him and he breaks out into a teasing smile.

“Missed us already?” he grins. He takes two steps (which would be equivalent to four of Beomgyu’s because Soobin’s legs are really freaking _long_ ) towards them, and then drops the towel he had been using to dry his hair. The cloth lands on the wooden flooring in an undignified, sad heap. All three of them groan simultaneously and the clamour leaves Soobin puzzled; he stares at them with crinkled eyebrows until Taehyun does the honour of relieving him of his confusion.

“We appreciate the sentiment, hyung, but we don’t really need a humidifier in the summer.” 

Soobin blinks at him owlishly before he looks down at the sad white pile on the floor and then back up at them with penitence plastered all over his face. He retrieves the cloth and deposits it into the hamper placed across the bathroom door. 

“How does your roommate even put up with you?” Kai snickers, ducking with a small squeal when Soobin reaches out to ruffle his hair into an even bigger mess. 

“He has his fair share of flaws too, thank you very much,” Soobin replies, defending his honour. 

“Ah, yes, roommate reminds me, I was saying something about my own before I was so rudely interrupted,” Beomgyu says, settling onto the foot of Soobin’s bed.

“No one really cares, hyung, if you couldn’t tell.” 

“What was that, Tyun? You’re dying to know what it is I’m about to say? I’ll put you out of your misery soon, my boy, don’t you— _ow, what the fuck_?” Beomgyu yelps when Taehyun delivers a strong kick to his shin. “Jesus, all I was saying was that I couldn’t get a proper look at my room because my roommate was asleep and I didn’t want to disturb him. I was wondering why in the world the place looked like a set out of a horror movie when I saw this lump on one of the beds. So I just kept my bags on the other side and made my way here. Didn’t even get a look at the guy,” he concludes with an insouciant shrug. “He didn’t seem too bad, though,” he tacks on as an afterthought.

“D’you reckon that from his style of sleeping or…?” Kai muses. 

“And the fact that his side of the room looked pretty unspectacular. Nothing too weird,” Beomgyu explains, as if his reasoning makes perfect sense. “Also, Taehyun, that hurt like shit,” the older complains, rubbing his leg in an effort to soothe the lingering ache, “I hope you know that you’re the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” 

“I take great pride in it.” 

“Anywho—” 

“Soobin hyung, it’s 2020, no one says that anymore.” 

“If the guy wants to use cringeworthy lingo that expired sixteen years ago then let him. Don’t be a killjoy, Taehyun-ah.” 

“ _Anywho—_ ” Soobin repeats, staring directly at Taehyun as he says it, “—what do you guys want to do? My roommate won’t be here for the rest of the weekend so we’ve got the room to ourselves the whole time.” 

“Don’t you have homework, hyung?” Kai asks, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Hush, young grasshopper, homework is for 1 AM on Sundays. Now, what do you guys want to do? It’s Friday night—the possibilities are _endless._ ” 

Unsurprisingly, by the time Beomgyu returns to his room, it’s well past 2 in the morning. After checking to see whether the lock was on or not (it wasn’t), he pushes open the door gently and steps inside. 

Now, Beomgyu isn’t quite sure what he was expecting to come back to, but it certainly wasn’t a non-sleeping, very awake roommate. The boy has his back turned to him, and the first (and only) thing that catches Beomgyu’s attention is the bright mop of neon yellow hair that sits on his roommate’s head. 

_What an unconventional colour._

Beomgyu shakes his head to rid it of the gratuitous commentary his brain is supplying and opens his mouth instead, determined on making a lasting impression on the person who is going to live with him for the rest of the year.

The words die on his tongue the minute the boy turns around. 

Beomgyu blinks. 

Choi Yeonjun blinks back. 

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.” 

🍁

“So you’re telling me your roommate is Yeonjun? Choi Yeonjun?” 

Beomgyu groans. 

“Your sworn enemy from middle and half of high school Choi Yeonjun?” 

Beomgyu groans again. 

“That means ‘yes’ in Beomgyu speak.” 

“We’ve known him for as long as you have, Hyuka, there’s really no need to be a smartass.” 

“ _Hey—_ ”

Beomgyu’s head shoots up from the table, essentially whacking Soobin—who had been leaning over him to steal the bread from his plate—in the face.

“Ow, Beomgyu, what the _fuck_?” the older moans in pain, hands flying up to assuage the throbbing in his nose and to shield it against further harm. 

Beomgyu murmurs a half-hearted apology, his spirits weighed down so heavily by the revelation of his roommate’s identity that he seems to have lost any and all sense of morality. 

“Not that you had any to begin with,” Taehyun says when he voices this. Beomgyu _really_ isn’t in the headspace to put up with the younger’s sass and so he does what he does best and kicks him under the table. If he revels in the loud, high-pitched yelp the action elicits from the usually composed boy, no one save for the two of them has to know. 

“Beomgyu hyung, what the fuck?” the redhead cries in anguish.

“Payback for yesterday,” he says with an indifferent shrug. “Also, hey, the two of you said the exact same thing,” he then points out with a laugh, which only increases in volume when two identical glares are sent his way. “Soobinie and Taehyunie soulmates, perhaps?” 

“I hope you know that that statement offended me deeply,” Kai tells him. 

“No one really cares, Kai-yah, so can we get back to the real problem here? You know, the fact that Yeonjun—my arch-nemesis for more than half my life Yeonjun—is my goddamn roommate? What are the _odds_? No, more importantly, _why_ are the odds?” Beomgyu says, all in one breath. 

“You were in the same school for four years, so unless you’re eight, I wouldn’t say that you were enemies for half your life.” 

“Taehyun, I swear to _God_ —” 

“ _Okay!_ Before this escalates and ends with one of you being sent to the hospital, let’s get back on track here,” Soobin—bless his angelic soul—intercepts loudly. 

“And _you—_ ” Beomgyu starts, turning his wrath on a scandalized Soobin, “—why didn’t you tell me that Choi Yeonjun is in your— _our_ —university?” 

“It never crossed my mind—” the boy attempts to justify his inexcusable behaviour (in Beomgyu’s opinion, anyway) which only fuels the younger’s chagrin. 

“ _It never crossed your mind_ to tell me that my _nemesis_ goes to the same university as us?” 

“I barely see him around, okay?” Soobin says, affronted. “He’s a dance major and I’m business, does it seem like our lives overlap?” 

“He’s a what now? Isn’t Beomgyu hyung going to major in dance too?” Kai inquires, wide-eyed. 

“I’m dropping out,” Beomgyu declares. 

“That would be nice.” 

“Screw you, Taehyun. I hope you rot in hell.” 

“Okay, but I’m sure this can be fixed,” Kai interrupts. Beomgyu turns to him with hopeful eyes, prompting the younger to elaborate, “You can get in touch with the housing faculty, right? I mean, why are you rooming with a third year anyway?” 

Silence envelopes their table. 

“What?” the youngest frowns, looking around. He’s greeted by three matching expressions of confoundment. 

“Hyuka...did you just say something _smart_?” 

“For once I agree with Beomgyu hyung on something. You should rot in hell, Taehyun.”

🍁

Yeonjun, of course, beats him to it. 

Beomgyu turns the corner into the corridor that houses his room, cursing at himself under his breath for his stupidity. He could have resolved the matter ten minutes ago if only he hadn’t written down the housing committee’s new number on a piece of paper, which is now tucked away in the safety of the desk in his room, instead of saving it on his phone like a normal person. And so, he had had to resign himself to travelling halfway across campus from where he had been at the mess to the residence halls. 

He slows to a stop in front of the door that has the number 410 carved into it, his hand freezing on the doorknob when he hears a raised voice from inside. 

_“Look, I get that there’s been a mix-up, but you need to understand that I simply cannot share my space with the roommate I’ve been assigned. You’re telling me that there isn’t a_ single _free bed in any of the other rooms in this building? Look—what was your name again? Seonghwa? Okay, Seonghwa, look, I might have been born with terrible luck but there is no way in hell that there isn’t one single free bed in the four residence halls in this university.”_

Beomgyu’s eyebrows furrow as he struggles to make out what the person is saying, ears straining in an effort to catch onto more as the voice suddenly grows fainter. 

He manages to perceive the words _‘incompatible’_ and _‘uncooperative’_ and that’s all it takes to have him bursting through the door in typical Beomgyu fashion. 

Needless to say, the sudden entry startles Yeonjun—who had moved to stand by the window at the back of the room—into almost dropping his phone with how violently he jumps. Beomgyu couldn’t care less about the fact that he almost sent the other into cardiac arrest; he wastes no time in stomping over to him, not stopping until they’re face to face. He promptly plucks the device out of Yeonjun’s slack grip and puts it to his ear, paying no heed to the litany of profanities the older sends his way. 

“Hello, Seonghwa, please excuse my roommate’s stupidity. He tends to call random people and act like he knows them when he gets lonely, which happens to be always because his social life is drier than MySpace. We’ll get back to you soon, thank you, sorry, bye.” 

He ends the call with that, and then looks up at Yeonjun with a fire burning in his eyes. 

He doesn’t remember having to look up at him in the past, though. 

Huh. 

He extinguishes the spark that the thought had set off in the center of his chest and channels all of his emotion into the glare he fixes the older with instead. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Beomgyu narrows his eyes at the taller, jabbing an accusatory finger at his chest. 

“What does it look like I was doing?” Yeonjun rolls his eyes, punctuating his words with a derisive scoff. Beomgyu kind of wants to break his nose. “There is no way I’m rooming with the likes of you for a whole year.” 

“Oh, _please_ ,” Beomgyu chuckles scornfully, “we both know _I’m_ the real victim here. Don’t turn this on me.” 

“So you don’t want to room with me either, obviously. Why’d you hang up then? I was trying to sort things out,” Yeonjun says, raising an eyebrow in question.

“You were getting pretty personal for someone who was trying to _‘sort things out,’_ ” Beomgyu says, air-quoting the last three words. He knows it pisses Yeonjun off slightly, based on the lines that appear in the space between the older’s eyebrows as he draws them together in mild irritation. Something flutters within Beomgyu. “Incompatible? Uncooperative? Really, hyung?” 

“I had to make a compelling argument,” Yeonjun shrugs.

“Compelling, of course,” Beomgyu repeats, pursing his lips. “And you thought that calling your roommate a bunch of nasty words would convince the faculty to kick said roommate out? Jeez, hyung, real mature.” He sighs in resignation then, bringing a hand up to his temple to assuage the ache that had settled behind the surface. “How I wish I had gotten to them before your childish ass. You couldn’t have waited ten more minutes before acting on your impulsive decision?” 

“Oh, so _that’s_ what this is about?” 

Beomgyu’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean?” 

“You wanted to get to them before me,” Yeonjun says slowly, the gears still turning in his head. The look of understanding that supersedes the annoyed expression that his features had once been drawn into makes it seem all the mysteries of the world make sense to him now. “This is a competition to you, isn’t it? You still see me as your rival, even to this day.” 

“Wha—hyung, don’t flatter yourself, I didn’t even—” Beomgyu starts, taking a step back to broaden the distance between them, which, he realises rather belatedly, had been close to none. The hand that had been prodding at the other’s chest falls to his side with the movement.

Yeonjun, however, seems to have other plans.

He quickly grabs hold of the hand again and then does the weirdest thing ever. 

He tugs Beomgyu in close. 

The younger crashes into him with an ungraceful _‘oof’_ and places a hand on his (firm, what the _fuck_ ) chest in an effort to steady himself. His head is still reeling from the recent events as his brain tries to provide a plausible explanation behind what just happened. He draws multiple blanks.

“ _Hyung,”_ he breathes, his voice coming out much squeakier than he had wanted it to. He sends a quick _‘screw you’_ to his voice box before continuing, “ _what the fuck._ ” 

“You still think of me as a rival,” Yeonjun repeats, with absolutely no regard for the existential crisis the younger is going through presently. His chest rumbles with a deep laugh. Beomgyu feels the vibrations of it under his palm. He gulps. “I always thought you were just the slightest bit obsessed with me back in the day. I mean, can you blame me? You used to turn _everything_ into a contest. And here we are, all these years later, and it seems like you haven’t changed one bit.” 

Beomgyu musters all the contempt he can garner into the glare he directs at the older, and _oh,_ how he hates the fact that he has to crane his neck to do so. It doesn’t faze the older in the slightest, though, judging by the way he’s still towering over Beomgyu and not running for his life the way he should be.

“Go on then,” Yeonjun taunts, lips drawn into an infuriating smirk dripping with arrogance. The urge to break his nose is stronger than ever, Beomgyu notes. “Make your call. Let’s see you put your eloquence to use. Or—” his voice deepens then as he leans down until their faces are mere inches apart. It takes all of Beomgyu’s willpower to hold his intense gaze, because he knows that if he crumbles under the weight of it, neither Beomgyu’s pride nor Yeonjun will allow him to live it down. And so Beomgyu shoves all intrusive thoughts of, _‘_ o _hmygodhe’ssohotupclosehelp’_ to the back of his head and stares up at the taller defiantly, “—is our little Beomie all bark and no bite?” 

Yeonjun pulls away abruptly then, and Beomgyu almost topples back onto him with how weak his knees have become, realising now that the older had been supporting most of his weight. Unfortunately, Yeonjun catches onto his wobbly movements too, and his smirk widens. He knows he’s struck a nerve. Screw him, honestly. 

“Careful there,” he snickers, and _god,_ Beomgyu really, _really_ wants to break his perfect nose. 

_Perfect?_ a voice at the back of his head echoes, incredulous. Beomgyu _—obviously—_ ignores it.

Yeonjun pats him on the shoulder then, and four long strides and another obnoxious chuckle later, he’s out of the room. 

Beomgyu stares at the door blankly, his mind still trying (and failing) to process the interaction that had taken place. There’s a burn that spreads beneath the skin of his shoulder like a wildfire, the vestiges of the older’s touch still lingering on the hand that had been encompassed by another much larger just seconds ago. It still sends aftershocks through his system. 

The cogs turn rapidly in Beomgyu’s mind. 

So Choi Yeonjun thinks he’s annoying, huh? 

Two can play at that game. 

🍁

It starts with trivial things. 

(Well, at least as trivial as Choi Beomgyu is capable of.)

Things such as mixing soy sauce in the flask the older uses for his coffee when he doesn’t have the time to stop by the campus café. 

(That had been _hilarious_ to witness. Beomgyu had watched eagerly from the comfort of his bed as his roommate took a mindless sip of his coffee while he bustled about his side of the room, getting ready for his first class of the day. It took about three seconds for his sleep-addled brain to process that there was something _very wrong_ with his coffee. Once the taste settled onto his tongue fully, he’d proceeded to spill the contents of his mouth onto his very pristine, very white bedsheets. Beomgyu had laughed for _hours_ , nevermind the chill-inducing glares he was on the receiving end of for the rest of the day.) 

Then there was the time where he switched out Yeonjun’s favourite shampoo with glue. He hadn’t expected that one to work, really, considering the contrast between the artificial, pungent odour the glue gave off and the pleasant scent of the shampoo. But apparently sleepy Yeonjun is the most defenceless Yeonjun—the only Yeonjun that isn’t on guard around him—and Beomgyu quickly learns that there is very little he cannot get away with in the morning. He exploits the hell out of this discovery, obviously. 

And his personal favourite was the one where he had placed a massive toy tarantula in the bag Yeonjun always brings along for dance class. 

Since the two of them have the same major, they share a majority of their classes—a fact that had irked Beomgyu to no end before he quickly turned it in his favour. More time spent with Yeonjun equals more opportunities to pester him, after all. 

And that is exactly why this particular prank, although painfully overused and severely lacking originality—and also a rather cheap shot, to be very honest—had been the perfect one to pull off. 

_“Yeonjun hyung,” Beomgyu starts, tugging on the sleeve of the older’s plain white t-shirt to get his attention. The boy momentarily pauses the stretching routine he was performing in preparation for the day’s session, looking down at him with a questioning hum._

_They have these..._ things _too, from time to time. Pleasant, genuine interactions lacking any of the rancour they usually regard each other with—moments wherein they talk to each other without wanting to rip each other’s throats out. Beomgyu sometimes wonders if they are moments of weakness, of vulnerability, before a voice that bears an uncanny resemblance to Soobin’s screams at him in his head to_ ‘stop overanalyzing, dear god.’ _And so he takes them as they are, and if he revels in their sweetness and sincerity, then no one but him has to know._

_As he looks into Yeonjun’s feline eyes that sparkle under the lights of the studio as they bore into his, guilt settles in the pit of his stomach for a brief moment. But then an image crosses his mind—an image of plush lips pulled into a complacent smirk—and as quickly as it had come, the feeling dissipates._

_“I think my bandana might have gotten into your bag instead of mine by accident, can you get it for me?” he requests sweetly, tilting his head to the side in question._

_“Why can’t you get it yourself?” Yeonjun inquires carefully. Beomgyu had been expecting this resistance, and so he tackles the obstacle with ease._

_“Please, hyung?” he whines, looking up at the older with the puppy eyes everyone has a soft spot for. “My foot’s been hurting a lot since yesterday,” he elaborates, “it’s bad enough that we have two hours of practice today. Won’t you make it a little easier for your precious roommate?”_

_He sees the hesitance on Yeonjun’s countenance before his shoulders droop in resignation. “Fine,” he mutters under his breath as he makes his way over to where everyone’s bags are kept in one corner of the studio._

_Beomgyu can barely contain his excitement as Yeonjun extracts his bag from the plethora of multi-coloured duffels and sling bags heaped over one another. He has to school his expression into one of indifference because there is absolutely no way he’s going to give himself away. Not yet, at least. He kneels down and pretends to tie his shoelaces instead as a disguise, sneaking furtive glances at the older’s frame across the room. (He’s wearing velcro, by the way.)_

_He has to purse his lips to bar any noises from slipping past them when he sees the blonde reach into his bag with furrowed eyebrows._

_The shrill scream Yeonjun lets out is music to Beomgyu’s ears._

And so this is how their first month as roommates passes. 

If asked, Beomgyu would—without a doubt—say that university is going absolutely swell for him. 

🍁

“Things are getting weird,” Beomgyu announces on a sunny Saturday morning. 

“Hyung,” Taehyun hisses, “we are in the _library_.” 

“Oh, my bad,” Beomgyu says contritely, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Things are getting weird,” he repeats, much quieter this time. 

“We heard you the first time,” Soobin snorts in poorly concealed amusement.

“I will fight your kneecaps,” Beomgyu threatens. 

“I’d like to see you try,” Soobin counters with an easy smile.

“What do you mean by ‘weird,’ hyung?” Kai interjects suddenly. Beomgyu has to think for a moment to remember what he was saying before he was interrupted, and he snaps his fingers in recognition when it comes back to him. The sharp sound echoes in the quiet of the library.

Taehyun looks up from his psychology reading to shoot him a dirty glare, and Beomgyu may or may not (depending on your sources) be more terrified of him than he is of the prissy librarian. 

“Yikes, okay, sorry,” Beomgyu whispers at the same time Soobin mumbles a, _‘who stole his lunch money?’_ under his breath. Beomgyu’s heightened hearing catches onto his snide remark, though, and it takes an insane amount of restraint to hold back a snort. 

“What do you mean? This is his permanent state of existence,” he reminds the older, and that’s all it takes to tip the two of them over the edge as they dissolve into a fit of giggles, propriety and etiquette be damned. 

Taehyun wordlessly raises a hand and Kai shoots him a quizzical glance before he looks over to where the older’s gaze is trained and grabs onto his arm, lowering it in a hurry. “What are you doing?” he whispers fiercely. 

“I was trying to get these two kicked out, but clearly you have other plans,” the redhead deadpans. 

“Okay, if you’re done with your lover’s quarrel—” Beomgyu is met with two identical expressions of unadulterated revulsion, and _oh,_ how he wishes at this moment that he had brought his camera along, “—would you mind letting me continue my story?” 

“The stage is yours,” Taehyun encourages, returning to his reading. Beomgyu tosses a pencil at him. 

“ _Anyway,_ ” he starts before he can get sidetracked again (because everyone and their mothers know that Beomgyu has the attention span of a goldfish), “I’ve been trying to get the spawn of Satan to snap for the longest time but all my recent endeavours have yielded disappointing results.”

“You mean to say he doesn’t get annoyed anymore, Shakespeare?” 

“Yes, hyung, I’m surprised your pea-brain processed that. Good job! Either way, the only reaction I can coax out of him anymore is this really h—” Beomgyu bites his tongue then, catching himself right before the full word slips past him. There is no way in hell that he’s going to let his friends be privy to the fact that he finds his roommate attractive. Nope. No way at all. 

(Not that they aren’t aware of it already.) 

“—this really weird thing that he does where he pokes his tongue against the inside of his cheek,” he finishes, shrinking slightly by the time he reaches the end of his drivel. 

He pretends to not see the omniscient glance the other three share. Out of sight, out of mind, after all. 

“No offense, hyung,” Kai says, leaning back in his chair casually, “but I’m not really sure why we’re having this conversation in the first place. The answer to your question—which you haven’t really asked, but you know what I mean—is pretty obvious,” he finishes with an apologetic smile. 

“Wha—” 

“Just the fact that he hasn’t given you a black eye for all the shit you’ve put him through in the past month speaks volumes, hyung,” Taehyun cuts him off smoothly. 

“Speaks volumes about what?” 

“You’re joking, right?” Soobin asks him, blinking at Beomgyu with the most flabbergasted expression the younger has seen from him in the course of their friendship (which is equal to Beomgyu’s age because they’ve just known each other for that long). He turns to the other two then. “He’s joking, right?”

“I don’t think he is, hyung,” Taehyun says with a solemn shake of the head. 

“Come on, he may be dumb but he’s not _that_ dumb,” Kai adds, and Beomgyu just has to heave an affronted gasp at that. 

“First,” he hisses, trying his level best to keep his volume under check, which is proving to be near-impossible considering the number of emotions coursing through his system at the moment, “I am literally _right_ here, so it’d be appreciated if you guys stopped talking about me as if I wasn’t, thank you. And second,” he says, his vitriolic gaze zeroing in on Kai in particular as he says it, “I would’ve expected this slander from Taehyun, but from you? You’ve clearly been spending far too much time with each other—making you two roommates was the universe’s biggest mistake.” 

“The universe’s biggest mistake was pineapple on pizza, but go off, I guess,” Soobin supplies from the left. Beomgyu steps on his foot. 

“Hyung,” Taehyun begins cautiously, as if talking to a kindergartner, “you are aware that knowing Yeonjun hyung, he would have beaten up anyone else in your place after the second ‘prank’?” 

“I can second that,” Kai agrees, shuddering as he continues, “I took a sip from his coffee when we were studying together in the student commons the other day and I swear he came so close to throttling me.” 

“See what I mean?” Taehyun says, gesturing in Kai’s general direction, “You exceeded the limit on day four, you’re _still_ going strong, and yet he doesn’t do more than what, shoot you a death glare?” 

“I’d chalked it up to him not wanting to make a scene and get us evicted from the dorms altogether. You can’t change roommates when you don’t have a room to begin with, you know,” Beomgyu informs matter-of-factly. 

Soobin and Taehyun face-palm at the exact same second. Beomgyu finds it a little frightening.

“You’re still trying to change roommates…?” Kai questions, his voice petering out warily towards the end. 

“He still is,” Beomgyu answers with a careless shrug, “I gave it up when it became apparent that they couldn’t care less and wouldn’t be getting back to us like, ever.” 

“Hey,” Taehyun pipes up all of a sudden, his tone coloured by a hint of emotion for once. He almost sounds _excited._ “ _Hey._ ” 

“We heard you the first time, what is it?” Beomgyu snaps, equal parts annoyed and curious. 

“I have an idea,” the redhead says. He holds up a long finger and points it at the shirt Beomgyu is wearing. 

“That’s Soobin hyung’s, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Beomgyu answers hesitantly, his words gaining an edge of defensiveness as he continues, “but this is only the second time I’ve worn something of his since we got here, so you can’t—” 

“Oh, hush,” the younger dismisses him with a petulant wave of the hand. “Give me a second.” 

They give him a second, anticipation permeating the air as they all watch the second youngest in action. 

The redhead puts a hand down on the table decisively, sending a few of the pages of Kai’s open notebook fluttering. Beomgyu supposes this is the equivalent of the whole main-character-slams-hand-down-on-table-in-light-of-eureka-moment thing, but attuned to the atmosphere of the setting they’re in. 

“I have weighed the pros and cons of my unvoiced proposition and have come to the conclusion that I simply do not care. That means that if this goes to shit, I am not to be held accountable in any shape or form. Capisce?” 

Beomgyu nods in apprehension. 

Taehyun smiles at him then, and it’s quite a confusing little thing. Beomgyu doesn’t know what to make of it. 

He later finds out that it was a good sign, after all.

🍁

As it turns out, since Beomgyu is the biggest airhead to have graced planet earth, it is only on his way up to his floor that he realises that his room key is nowhere on his person, meaning it is nestled somewhere safely in the confinement of his desk drawer. And that is a problem, for Beomgyu had left the room before Yeonjun that morning, and so the older must have locked the door behind himself (they had started locking the door after someone once stole all six packs of Yeonjun’s cup ramyeon, an incident that had left the older absolutely devastated for a full week. That had been one of the most trying times in Beomgyu’s life) before leaving for the studio.

He groans in dread at the realisation but continues on his way nonetheless, in the hopes that Yeonjun might be back already. (He won’t be, Beomgyu knows this, because it’s Saturday night and Yeonjun always stays at the practice rooms till nine o’clock on Saturday nights, because he’s stupidly ambitious like that. Beomgyu has his schedule memorized by heart at this point. It’s still worth a shot, anyway.) 

As expected, the door won’t budge when Beomgyu tries the handle, and so after patting around his pockets and bag one more time, he pulls out his phone and navigates through the apps until he reaches Soobin’s number. 

“Hyung,” he starts when the line connects after the third ring, “I got locked out of my room.” 

“Oof, tough luck, dude,” Soobin says sympathetically. 

“I know. I was wondering if I could spend the next two or three hours at your place? Just until Yeonjun hyung gets back from the studio,” Beomgyu requests plaintively. 

“No can do today, kiddo,” Soobin replies, repentant. “My roommate has a major test on Monday and he can’t afford any distractions.” Beomgyu notices now that the older’s voice is quieter than usual. “Besides, I barely got any studying done today, but I guess I should’ve known that it’s practically impossible to even _think_ of the word ‘productive’ with you three idiots around. So yeah, no distractions.” 

“Are you calling me a distraction?” the younger questions, offended. 

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Soobin answers without missing a beat. Beomgyu would have smacked him for that on the shoulder had he been in front of him. He briefly considers climbing up another flight of stairs to Soobin’s floor to do just that.

“What do I do, then? Tyun and Kai both have things coming up on Monday, too, so I can’t camp out there either,” Beomgyu huffs, clearly at a loss. 

“Why don’t you just go over to the studios and borrow Yeonjun’s key from him? They’re not too far from here anyway.” 

“Hyung, that requires _movement_.” 

“Stay outside and freeze, then,” Soobin says impassively. 

“It’s October, it’s not all that cold yet. Besides, we have central heating. You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Soobin-ah.” 

It takes Beomgyu a few seconds to realise that he’s been hung up on. He curses up a storm under his breath when he does, though. Still, no matter how bitter his feelings towards his best friend may be at the moment, he does acknowledge that the solution he had provided was the only viable course of action left. 

And so a few minutes of introspection and one internal pep-talk later, Beomgyu sets off towards the stairs. 

He’s met with the chilly October air as he steps out of the lobby of his residence hall, and he immediately regrets his words to his best friend earlier because _god,_ was it cold. He pulls the oversized jacket he has on (it’s Soobin’s) tighter around his slim frame and trudges onto the pathway that lines the buildings. 

The campus is much more serene at night than it is in the day, predictably. There are barely any people in sight, everyone preferring the warmth of their dorms over the frigid evening air. Beomgyu doesn’t blame them; he would have done the same had it not been for his recklessness. 

The leaves are beginning to turn a pretty shade of vibrant orange, Beomgyu observes, as is expected of early October. This has to be one of his favourite months of the year, he decides. Just the thought of all things October—trees with leaves that are a coalescence of reds, yellows and oranges, pumpkin spice lattés (Beomgyu doesn’t even like them all that much—at least, not nearly as much as he likes the aesthetic associated with them), and of course, Halloween. The thought sends a pleasant shiver down his spine. 

He’s detached himself from reality to the extent to which he doesn’t realise he’s reached his destination until his feet slow to a stop on their own. He looks up from his slightly chafed converse (the red ones) to see that he’s standing right in front of the dance studios. He has to take a moment to blink in surprise at the fact that his feet had navigated to the building completely on their own, and while, sure, Beomgyu knew his way around campus fairly well by now—especially around this area, to be specific—he hadn’t realised just how well until now. Muscle memory is a fascinating thing, he deduces. 

Beomgyu tells himself that this isn’t the right time to marvel over the wonders of human development and with that thought, he hurries inside, relishing in the warmth that envelopes his body the minute he steps in. Deciding that he’s spent enough time waxing poetic, he doesn’t waste any more and lets his feet lead him, once again. He knows the way to the practice room Yeonjun always uses by heart now, too. 

He turns a corner into one of the corridors, and sure enough, as he nears the end of it, the music, which is familiar to him too at this point, grows progressively louder. There, right in the corner, at the end of the corridor, is a room with its door slightly ajar. Light spills through the crack, illuminating the otherwise poorly lit passageway. 

Beomgyu pushes the door open just the slightest bit, peeking in first to read the room. His breath catches in his throat at the sight that greets him. 

He’s seen Yeonjun dance before—several times, at that. He shares essentially all of his classes with him, and they’ve been partnered up before, too. He has seen more than enough to know that Yeonjun is _good._ It’d actually be offensive to use such an underwhelming word to describe his skill. 

Yeonjun is _amazing._ He moves in a way Beomgyu has never witnessed before—and perhaps that’s what makes him so special: the fact that he has his very own style, influenced by others but tweaked to perfection with a flair of his own. He has a way of turning the smallest of movements into something special, almost magical. Beomgyu will never cease to be transfixed by the older’s overflowing talent. 

He doesn’t realise that he has stepped almost fully into the room, with barely one foot left in the dark of the corridor. 

As he watches Yeonjun twirl gracefully to a melody that lingers constantly at the back of his head, simply because of the sheer number of times he has heard it play in their dorms, something within him flutters. He feels an odd warmth bloom in the very center of his chest; its tendrils wrap themselves around his lungs and _squeeze._

Beomgyu gasps as silently as he can, feeling suddenly very short of breath. 

_Huh._

He manages to steady his breathing in a minute’s time, but the several question marks the sensation leaves behind in his head do not disappear. What _was_ that? 

Beomgyu tries to disregard the intrusive thoughts that pile up rapidly in his head. He doesn’t have the heart (or the guts) to sort through and address them now. Instead, he shifts his attention back onto the graceful figure in the center of the room. That’s a far more pleasant thing to do, anyway. 

Beomgyu watches Yeonjun sway and spin and turn effortlessly, his movements spilling into one another, as fluid as water. His eyes are closed as he lets the music guide him through the routine Beomgyu has seen him practice repeatedly for weeks now, somewhat analogous to a puppet on a thread. Yeonjun’s thread is the music. 

Beomgyu watches, entranced. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen a sight as beautiful as this one: Yeonjun, with his wet blonde hair falling into his eyes, the dampness serving as a testament to the number of hours he had spent under the harsh fluorescent lights of his favourite practice room, dancing to a beat that was surely made for him. And so, he commits the scene to memory, burning it onto the back of his eyelids.

The odd, tingling sensation has returned, Beomgyu notes. He doesn’t dismiss it this time; instead, he lets it fester, growing stronger and stronger the more he looks at the figure just a few feet away. It doesn’t take too long to piece together an inference from the arrival of the foreign feeling that has suddenly taken refuge in his chest. 

To put it simply, he’s fucked. 

The song draws to a close then. Yeonjun’s eyes meet his own in the mirror.

Oh. Oh dear. 

He truly is fucked.

🍁

Beomgyu works his way through Taehyun’s plan in increments. 

It starts out small—with a scarf here, and a pair of gloves there. Any onlooker would be able to tell that they weren’t his own, because no one buys oversized _gloves._ Now that would be inane. 

Infinitesimal things, really. 

He turns it up a notch then, just to make things more obvious. He’d show up to practice in a sweater that Soobin had worn to classes the previous day, simply due to the fact that the scent of vanilla mixed with cologne that was unique to Soobin only still clung to the oversized fabric, and that’d work out immensely in his favour if he played his cards right.

The memory of the first time he had put this segment of the plan into effect remains fresh in his mind. 

_“Hyung,” he says to an unassuming Yeonjun before one of their theoretical classes one fine day. For whatever reason, even in these, they would gravitate towards each other and partner up unknowingly with a frequency that was far too high to be considered normal. For two people who claim to be enemies, they sure do enjoy one another’s company quite a bit. Beomgyu finds it laughably sad._

_“Hm?” Yeonjun replies without looking up from his notes. “Put another spider in my bag, did you?”_

_Beomgyu scoffs at his cavalier attitude. “You’re making me wish I had. But, no, that isn’t the case, unfortunately. Can I borrow your eraser?”_

_He doesn’t wait for an answer, because if Yeonjun hands it to him on his own volition, his efforts would be for naught. Instead, he raises himself off of his seat slightly, places a delicate hand on the older’s shoulder to balance his weight, and leans into his space to reach for the eraser that is very conveniently placed at a considerable distance from him. He feels his fingers catch onto the edge of the rubber, and so he curls his hand around the object and retreats into his own space, shooting a now gaping Yeonjun a sweet, “thank you!” before turning back to his work._

_“Gyu,” he hears the other say less than a minute later. He has to bite his tongue to keep the elation at bay, with how it’s coursing through his veins and threatening to burst out any minute now._

_“Hm?” he replies, feigning nonchalance. He tears his gaze away from his notebook when he doesn’t receive an answer, looking up at the older with as blank a countenance as he can manage. He’s greeted by an expression that he can’t quite read._

_“Y—You smell different.”_

_Now,_ that _throws Beomgyu off guard; he has to catch himself in time before he starts sputtering because that would be a dead giveaway to the fact that his little stunt had ulterior motives, something that he absolutely cannot afford. Needless to say, he had_ not _expected the older to be so straightforward._

_“Come to think of it,” Yeonjun continues then, seemingly gaining confidence from Beomgyu’s stunned silence, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear that before,” he says, pointing a slender finger at the deep v-neck sweater that hangs loosely off Beomgyu’s frame. The younger convinces himself that the lingering glance his seatmate casts at his very visible collarbones is simply a figment of his imagination._

_“Oh, this is not mine,” Beomgyu explains with an amicable smile, recovering from the temporary shock swiftly, “it’s been lent to me by a friend.”_

_Their professor walks in then, cutting all conversation in the room short._

_Beomgyu doesn’t tell him who the friend is._

Yeonjun starts to pay more attention to his clothing after that. Beomgyu would catch the older staring at him with that same agonizingly unreadable expression from time to time, whether it be when they are alone in their room or during their classes, in front of hordes of other people. 

Beomgyu discovers that Yeonjun is a little shameless in that sense. 

He still doesn’t tell him who the friend is. It isn’t until Soobin drops by one evening to collect a pile of his clothes that Yeonjun figures it out. Beomgyu can practically _see_ the cogs turning in the older’s head as he hands over the garments to his best friend. Soobin musses up his hair then, more out of force of habit than out of actual fondness, before taking his leave. 

Beomgyu turns around to find Yeonjun staring at him with such intensity in his smoldering gaze that the younger is surprised his knees don’t buckle from the force of it. He averts his gaze quickly and returns to his English assignment. They don’t talk for the rest of the night. 

The sweater phase lasts for another week after that little incident. And then comes the last stage of Taehyun’s self-proclaimed ingenious scheme. 

Now, on any other occasion, Beomgyu wouldn’t have felt nearly as uncomfortable as he does currently, but he can’t quite quell the anxiety wrapping around him with the knowledge that he’s doing this not for the sake of comfort but for a certain pair of eyes. 

He has to give it up to Taehyun, though, because credit should be given where credit is due. The boy might be a bit of a sadistic bitch most of the time, but he has a brain that works faster than the speed of light and in the end, his friends’ happiness and wellbeing is always in his best interest. So yes, go Kang Taehyun. 

Soobin’s old jersey is, as expected, absolutely enormous on Beomgyu. It’s slightly large for Soobin too, so it reaches mid-thigh when worn by the younger. And on the back, in bold, conspicuous lettering, it reads: ‘Choi Soobin’ under which are printed the numbers ‘82’ in even bolder print.

The jersey is from their high-school days, back when Beomgyu, Taehyun and Kai were in the tenth grade and Soobin was in the year above them. Soobin had, after much cajoling and wheedling from the other three, tried out for the basketball team because apparently he should _“do something interesting for once._ _”_

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, rather, considering the fact that Soobin’s unwillingness to try his hand at new things has always been the only thing holding him back because whatever he _does_ do, he without fail excels at), he’d gotten in. And all the rigorous training and hours of practicing surely paid off because Soobin—with his towering height coupled with his innate flair for, well, everything—quickly became a force to be reckoned with. And the fact that he had three very loyal and very _loud_ supporters cheering him on at every single match possibly had something to do with his enhanced performance as well. That had lasted for a whole year, until they all moved up a grade and Soobin decided that sport wasn’t quite his thing ( _‘_ _what bullshit,’_ Beomgyu remembers thinking).

That had been a fun year, Beomgyu muses in maudlin remembrance now that he looks back on it. 

Either way, one of the takeaways from that experience had been the customary jersey that is given to all the members on the team, and Beomgyu would have ever expected the once forgotten garment to hold so much significance to this scheme of theirs.

(“Everyone say _‘Thank you, King Taehyun, for without your sagacious and benign soul looking over us, we would most likely be dead in a ditch by now.’_ ” 

“How about no?” 

“That doesn’t sound like what I asked you to say. Now, from the top—”) 

It’s nearing the end of October, so wearing just the jersey would be ludicrous, which is why Beomgyu pulls on a warm black shirt underneath (which very conveniently matches his black sweatpants, but not so much his luminous mismatched socks), the sleeves of which extend past the tips of his fingertips, just as he likes them. 

And then he waits, hoping sincerely that he isn’t making a fool out of himself by doing this. 

According to his watch, there are exactly fourteen minutes left until Yeonjun returns from his last class for the day (one of the few classes the two of them don’t share) and that is factoring in the time it would take for the journey back to the dorms. He certainly hopes the older doesn’t take a detour or have other plans in mind, because that would only leave him to stew in regret and embarrassment for an even longer stretch of time. 

To rid his mind of this unbidden train of thought related to all things Yeonjun, Beomgyu decides he’ll try and get some work done (although he knows it’ll be fruitless). He pads over to his desk, which has gained its fair share of trinkets and knick-knacks over time, to retrieve his laptop. He starts it up once he has made himself comfortable on his bed before putting on his reading glasses and pulling up his dance theory assignment. 

To his pleasant surprise, he manages to work his way through a commendable portion of the article he has to read before his ears pick up on the sound of the door being pushed open. A quick glance at this watch tells him that it has been sixteen minutes since he started. He briefly considers doing a minor in mathematics. 

His eyes dart to the door just to confirm that the new arrival is, in fact, his roommate and not some ramyeon-thief. He heaves a quiet breath of relief when he catches sight of the neon yellow (although it leans more towards a faded blonde now) hair that is unique to only one person on campus (okay, that’s a bit of a stretch—there are surely other people with the same shade in their university, but Beomgyu doesn’t have eyes for anyone who isn’t Yeonjun). He quickly trains his gaze back onto his laptop screen while the older still has his back turned to him, and as he opens his mouth to acknowledge his presence, he wonders silently to himself how long it’ll take Yeonjun to notice his choice of clothing. 

“Yeonjun hyung,” he says in greeting.

“Gyu,” the older returns, cordial. Beomgyu watches surreptitiously as the older removes his coat and hangs it on the back of his chair. He turns around then, and the younger has to bite back a surprised gasp at how _good_ the older looks in the tight full-sleeve white undershirt he’s wearing. It hugs his frame in all the right places and Beomgyu drinks in the beautiful sight of the fabric wrapping around Yeonjun’s _very conspicuous_ muscles and the hint of sharp collarbone that peaks out from where the shirt dips for all of three seconds before he pinches himself in the thigh, scolding himself mentally for acting like such a creep. 

It isn’t his fault that Choi Yeonjun is _far_ too attractive for his own good, though.

“How was class?” Beomgyu asks conversationally. He picks up his water bottle to slake the thirst that had begun to claw at his throat as he waits for the older to reply. His mouth seems to have gone suspiciously dry. 

“It was alright, I suppose, but our snake of a professor gave us _two_ assignments _right_ before he walked out of class. Like, who does that?” Yeonjun complains as he pulls his socks off his feet, nose scrunching up in distaste. Beomgyu is hopelessly endeared by the action. 

“That sounds awful,” he says sympathetically, choking on a laugh when Yeonjun opens his cupboard only to have a rolled up shirt land smack in the center of his face, eliciting an undignified _‘oomph’_ from the boy. “Let me know if I can help in any way.” 

“Thanks, tiger,” Yeonjun smiles in gratitude, recuperating quickly from the unexpected attack orchestrated by his previous day’s outfit. He emerges from his cupboard a second later, fresh towel and a set of pajamas in hand, and steps towards Beomgyu’s bed to ruffle the younger’s black hair fondly. 

Beomgyu, meanwhile, is suffering from very violent heart palpitations that had been set off in the first place by the affectionate nickname the other had used, and exacerbated by the hair-ruffle. 

“I’ll be back after freshening up, okay? You can tell me about your day, then,” Yeonjun promises, looking down at him with a tenderness in his eyes that sparkles with so much fervour that Beomgyu finds it extremely difficult to hold his gaze. 

“Okay,” he says, hoping the quiver lacing the word goes unnoticed. 

Yeonjun pulls away then, and continues towards the bathroom. Beomgyu listens for the telltale sign of the door being closed and all but deflates when he hears the soft click. 

He truly is screwed.

As he listens mindlessly to the faint sound of water running from the faucet in their bathroom, he eventually comes to realise that his plan wouldn’t work at all if he remains seated with his back plastered against the bedframe, as is the case presently. And so, he takes the silence that prevails in the bathroom when the faucet is turned off as his cue to push himself off of his warm bed, forcibly relaxing his hands which apparently can’t seem to stop clamming up on their own. 

The bathroom door opens. Beomgyu gulps. 

“Hyung,” he starts after giving the other a minute to shut the door behind himself. He takes a moment to absorb the older’s appearance—his hairline is damp, with some disheveled strands sticking to his forehead, and he has on what is possibly the cutest (in Beomgyu’s very biased view, at least) pair of pajamas. It certainly isn’t the younger’s first time seeing its colourful fruit print (the fruits have little faces drawn onto them—Beomgyu recalls almost squealing in endearment when he’d seen the design for the first time around), but the sight doesn’t get any less adorable with time. 

Yeonjun looks at him then, eyes glimmering in question. 

“Would you mind if I messed with the thermostat a bit? I’m feeling a little cold.” He reaches down to fiddle with the hem of the jersey, a habit he has never been able to shirk. In this situation, however, he realises that it can aid him in his mission. 

He’s torn between jumping for joy and quivering in nervousness when Yeonjun, for the first time since his arrival, actually _looks_ at him. He watches intently as a small, almost indiscernible crease appears between his roommate’s eyebrows as his eyes rake shamelessly over his figure. It takes everything in Beomgyu’s power not to fold in on himself under the intense scrutiny. 

“Sure,” is the older’s simple reply. 

Beomgyu nods, prepares himself mentally with a brief pep-talk and inhales deeply, all in the span of five seconds. He turns around then. 

He can’t quite decide what to make of the sharp intake of breath he hears, and the urge to turn around and see just what kind of expression Yeonjun might have on his face is almost irrepressible. He manages to tamp it down firmly though, and makes his way over to the thermostat by the door instead. He turns the heat up just the slightest bit because really, the last thing he needs right now is something to worsen the moistness on his palms, and he takes a moment to berate himself for not thinking of a simpler excuse. 

He closes his eyes for a moment to brace himself for what is to come before turning back around. 

And really, the fact that Beomgyu doesn’t crumple under the weight of the gaze he is on the receiving end of is highly commendable. 

Yeonjun seems to have lost any and all sense of propriety, because he doesn’t look away even when Beomgyu meets his gaze meekly, which is typically what any sane person is obligated to do. It’s in the basic guidelines of staring, _duh._

Beomgyu clears his throat in an effort to diffuse some of the tension seeping into the air between them. He just _knows_ that his cheeks are colouring in embarrassment from the attention he’s being subjected to, based on the pleasant warmth he feels on his face. 

He takes a brave step towards the rigid figure in the center of the room, and then another, and another, until he’s barely a few inches apart from the older. He pauses for just a second, searching in between the soft, barely visible lines on Yeonjun’s face for answers, before pushing past him gently to reach for the laptop that lays unattended on his bed. He returns to his desk then, pretending not to notice the fierce stare boring into the back of his head.

He pulls his feet up onto his chair and after wiggling around to make himself comfortable, continues with his assignment. 

Now, he hadn’t quite had a notion of how long it would take for his little experiment to yield results, but as Yeonjun pulls up his own chair to sit next to him, he can confirm that he hadn’t expected it to happen nearly this quick. 

Yeonjun, however, as Beomgyu has come to learn, is full of surprises. 

“So,” the blonde begins cautiously, as if treading unexplored territory (which, come to think of it, is actually the case), “Soobin.” 

“I know we’d already established that you aren’t the brightest person around, hyung, but I hadn’t thought you were _this_ dumb. Your facial recognition skills are shockingly underdeveloped,” Beomgyu says without much thought, because bullying Yeonjun is practically second nature at this point. It is as seamlessly assimilated into his system as something as quotidian as waking up in the morning. 

He yelps in distress when a hand tugs at a lock of his hair suddenly, not hard enough to actually hurt, but just about enough to provide warning. “Jeez, okay, sorry,” Beomgyu blanches, reaching up to pat the awry strands in place. 

“As I was saying,” Yeonjun says, the caution from before leaking into his words again, “is Soobin your—you know…?” he trails off timidly. 

“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t know. Care to enlighten me?” Beomgyu cocks an eyebrow, basking in the feeling of having the upper-hand again. 

“Are you and Soobin…” Yeonjun starts again, struggling with his words as a child learning to speak for the first time would, “...dating?” 

Beomgyu blinks at him for a minute straight before he bursts out laughing, making a huge show of gasping for breath in between giggles. He is very aware of the older’s puzzled gaze drilling into the side of his head, but he lets him stew in his misery for a while longer as he wipes tears of mirth from his eyes. He also considers pursuing a minor in theatre. 

“Soobin hyung? Really? Why would you think that?” he manages in between laughs. 

Yeonjun gives him the most deadpan look he has ever seen on anyone (and that’s saying something, considering Kang Taehyun is one of his best friends) before wordlessly pointing at the younger’s shirt. 

“Okay, nevermind, I see where you’re coming from,” Beomgyu concedes with a thoughtful hum. “But you’re familiar with our dynamic, aren’t you? Even in spite of that?” 

“Couples bicker, Gyu. It’s the hallmark of literally every teenage couple. And of couples of all other ages, too, but it’s more specific to teenage and elderly couples. And arranged marriages, too, I suppose—” 

“Hyung, you’re rambling. Also, I’m 19, which by universally accepted standards is not considered a part of the teenage, and Soobin hyung is literally 20. You’ve got your facts wrong,” he tells the older complacently, earning himself a light smack on the thigh. 

“You mean to say you _are_ a couple?” Yeonjun says then, all traces of blitheness disappearing. The contrast between the look of seriousness he dons now and the playful—albeit tinted with suspicion—expression he had on earlier sends a shiver down Beomgyu’s spine. 

“Huh?” he says eloquently. 

“You haven’t denied it.” 

A short silence stretches between them before Beomgyu speaks again. 

“Hyung,” he says, “I would rather jump off a cliff than date Soobin hyung. I just really like how big his clothes are on me because I’m an absolute sucker for the oversized aesthetic.” 

And maybe it’s wishful thinking, but Beomgyu swears he sees Yeonjun sag in something that looks almost like… _relief?_

Beomgyu discreetly pinches himself in the thigh for the second time that evening; this time around, though, it’s for being delusional and allowing himself to indulge in the unrealistic scenarios he’s thought up in his head—scenarios in which Yeonjun likes him back. 

(Yes, he has come to terms with the fact that he has a crush—a rather massive one, at that—on his roommate, who also happens to be his sworn enemy. His days have become slightly easier since he’s reached this agreement with himself.) 

The older probably still regards him with disdain somewhere deep down, even though their interactions may tell another tale. At least one of them is holding up their end of the bargain, Beomgyu thinks dejectedly. 

“Hey, Gyu, you with me?” 

Beomgyu struggles to focus on the hand that is being thrust in his face with his glazed over eyesight, but when the mist clouds over and he can see clearly again, he wonders if it would have been better to remain in the half-blind state he’d been in. 

Yeonjun’s face is far too close to his own for both his liking and his comfort, and he feels the now familiar warmth creeping back into his cheeks as he scans the other’s defined features, restricting his gaze to the upper part of his face and willing it not to drop to his plush lips. Now _that_ would be embarrassing. 

The proximity sends yet another chill down his spine and Beomgyu shudders visibly. He knows the other has caught onto the motion, if the concern that flashes in his expressive eyes is anything to go by. 

“You should change out of that if it isn’t keeping you warm. I have plenty of sweaters that’d be large on you, if that’s what you’re looking for. I’d be glad to lend one of them to you, if you’d like,” Yeonjun offers kindly. 

And Beomgyu _would_ certainly like that. Scratch that, he would love it. But he has just enough of his sanity preserved to deduce that that would be overstepping a boundary, no matter how close they’ve grown in the past two months, and he also knows that wearing something that belongs to Yeonjun and has his scent (mint with a tinge of lemon) plastered all over it would be severely detrimental to his already weak soul.

“Oh no, hyung, that’s quite alright. I’m not all that cold anymore, and even if I do feel chilly, I’ll just crank the heat up some more. I’m good with this, thanks.” 

And then, the most absurd thing happens. 

Yeonjun licks his lips, tracing the plushness with his tongue slowly, and cocks an eyebrow at him. 

He looks almost... _jealous._

 _Huh,_ Beomgyu thinks, mind blank. _That’s new._

The blonde nods wordlessly in acquiescence before he gets up and drags his chair back to his own desk. Beomgyu feels strangely empty without the heat emanating off of the older’s body keeping him warm.

He goes to sleep that night with the image of glossy, shining lips and a perfectly arched eyebrow burned into the back of eyelids. 

🍁

“Okay, so!” Yeonjun says, far too cheerily for a Monday morning. Beomgyu’s head throbs already. “This is the plan. You sneak into the administration office, hack into their database, navigate through the records until you find the housing stuff, and switch out my name with someone of your choice. Which would be Soobin, I assume. Obviously, I’d have to fill in the empty space in his room after that, so you better hope his roommate is nice, or I _will_ find you. That way, when we call them to tell them there’s been a mistake—make sure to hang up if it’s Seonghwa, that dude knows more about my personal life than I’d like to admit—they’ll check their data and see that there _was_ a mistake all this time. They’ll switch us out, you get to room with your boyfriend, I get to room with a non-Beomgyu, and we both get our ‘happily ever after’s. But like, separately. What do you think?” 

Beomgyu stares at the older, unimpressed. 

“What?” 

“ _That’s_ your master plan?” 

“Yes!” Yeonjun answers excitedly. “Do you not like it?” 

“Hyung,” Beomgyu starts in disbelief. He pauses to take a long sip of his coffee, smiling into the cup when he hears the impatient tapping of the older’s feet under the table. “I can’t count the number of loopholes and inaccuracies in this plan of yours on one hand. Scratch that—I can’t even do it on _two_ hands.” 

“Elaborate,” Yeonjun demands petulantly.

“Okay, for starters, Soobin hyung is _not_ my boyfriend. We’ve been through this far too many times in the past, hyung.” Yeonjun waves him off dismissively, and Beomgyu can barely resist the urge to roll his eyes. “And then there’s the technical inconsistencies. For instance, how about the fact that I’m a dance major and I’m being tasked with hacking into a probably heavily protected database? Besides, even if we look past that, why do _I_ have to bear the brunt of doing the dirty work anyway? Why can’t _you_ sneak into the office?” 

“Because you’re small and wiggly that way,” Yeonjun tells him sincerely. Beomgyu kicks him under the table. 

“Why don’t you just give it up, hyung? It’s been two whole months and they’ve not gotten back to you on any of the gazillion complaints you’ve filed,” he groans in exasperation, running a hand down his face tiredly. He really isn’t in the mood for Yeonjun’s shenanigans; there’s an unbearable ache in every single part of his body, a very predictable result of the six hours he had spent in the studio the previous day. Then there’s the mental pain, too: the fact that he has to live with the reality that his roommate—the very same roommate whom he has a hopeless crush on and would do practically anything for—seems to be working tirelessly on erasing his presence from his life. It’s alright though, he supposes. An outcome like this was to be expected, what with them being ‘enemies’ and all. It’s fine. 

And precisely because it’s fine, Beomgyu continues bravely, swallowing down the hurt he feels. “The past two ‘meetings’ you’ve called me to have both been in vain and this one is turning out the same way. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were indirectly asking me out on dates,” he concludes, his tone taking on a teasing edge towards the end. Some good-natured ribbing has never done anyone any harm, after all.

At least, that is what he thinks, until he glances up at Yeonjun.

The older is staring adamantly at the half-eaten piece of his cake on his plate. And his ears are tinted a pretty shade of red. 

_Oh,_ Beomgyu thinks, and “ _Oh,_ ” Beomgyu says out loud.

“I—I have to go,” Yeonjun sputters, hurriedly gathering his belongings before slamming a few bills onto the table and promptly booking it out of the café, leaving a very bewildered Beomgyu to gaze at the spot he had been in just seconds ago and wonder what the fuck just happened. 

🍁

Beomgyu huffs as he climbs the last flight of stairs leading to the fourth floor, wondering bitterly to himself when their building’s wonky elevator would finally be fixed. 

He shuffles lethargically towards his room, deliberately moving in slow-motion. He has managed to delude himself into thinking that it’s because his body still hurts a tremendous amount, but there’s a nagging, insistent voice at the back of his head that reminds him constantly of the real reason behind his unwillingness to move faster. 

Monday is the only day of the week wherein Beomgyu doesn’t share any classes with a certain neon-haired individual—something that had initially made him ecstatic, then (after the discovery of his feelings) sorrowful, and for today in particular, relieved. He doesn’t even want to imagine how awkward the air between them would have been had they been in the same room today, and so Beomgyu thanks his lucky stars for giving him a Yeonjun-less Monday. 

He ultimately comes to terms with the harsh reality, which is that if he remains out in the corridor for any more than fifteen minutes, he would very likely catch a terrible cold. The part of his subconscious that he usually listens to (the evil side which is the root of all of his questionable decision-making) tells him that if he _does_ fall sick, he would have a very valid reason to skip classes for a few days; skipping classes would equal less time spent with Yeonjun and less time spent with Yeonjun would equal avoiding the major issue in his life right now, which is exactly what Beomgyu has been avidly doing for the entirety of the day. He is extremely tempted to give in and do just that, but he admits (albeit with great reluctance) that the repercussions—which included being subjected to long hours of suffering and several snot-covered tissues—would not quite be worth it since he would still be in Yeonjun’s company every night anyway. 

And so, with a heavy heart, he places a hesitant hand on the brass door handle and taking a huge leap of faith, swings the door open. 

Beomgyu has never quite understood the concept of liking another human being to the point of having your heart feel like it is about to burst through your chest and your hands sweat like there’s no tomorrow. He remembers never being able to relate with his classmates back in school as he listened to them drone for hours on end about their crushes with stars in their eyes. He hasn’t ever been able to wrap his head around the fact that it was possible to revere someone to the extent of losing all respect for yourself and resorting to looking like a lovesick puppy. 

As he gazes wistfully at the figure that stands by the window, blanketed by the yellow of the setting sun and looking like something straight out a clichéd romcom, Beomgyu thinks he might understand now.

His breath hitches violently as Yeonjun’s gaze snaps to him. He tries to pretend that his fragile heart doesn’t crack slightly at the aloof, “Beomgyu,” that the older mutters in greeting and the distant, uninterested look in the feline eyes that usually regard him with so much warmth. He also tries not to choke on the hurt that has his throat tightening and closing up, focusing on toeing off his shoes and shutting the door behind him instead. 

The silence that encompasses them is stifling _._

Beomgyu drops his bag by the foot of his bed, clearing his throat audibly right after, just for the sake of filling the suffocating silence with _something._

He sneaks a clandestine glance at his roommate (something he has grown accustomed to doing at this point), exhaling in relief when he sees that the boy has returned to staring sentimentally out of the window. As his eyes trace the features that have become so familiar to him that he could probably draw them in his sleep if asked, Beomgyu ruminates on the conversation he had had with his friends earlier that day.

_“It’s just so confusing,” Beomgyu huffs in frustration, approximately three seconds away from tearing his hair out. The large hand that draws comforting patterns into the skin of his back through his shirt does little to help to ease his consternation, but the sentiment is appreciated nonetheless. “I’m so used to having ‘hated’ him for such a formative part of my life and now all of a sudden I can’t stop thinking about how beautiful he is no matter how hard I try and it’s just so—ugh.” He buries his face in his hands then, at a complete loss for words._

_“It’s alright, hyung-ah, let it all out,” Kai assures gently, his ministrations on Beomgyu’s back unceasing._

_“Hyung,” Taehyun says, voice uncharacteristically tender, “you know that it’s completely alright to like someone you didn’t get along with once upon a time, right? That’s why the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope exists in the first place,” he jokes, and the remark manages to draw a small smile out of an otherwise distressed Beomgyu. “Besides,” the redhead continues, “your rivalry wasn’t all that intense to begin with, if you really think about it. Also, it isn’t as if you two have some contract which states that it’s an obligation to hate each other’s guts or something. You don’t, do you?”_

_Beomgyu shakes his head minutely._

_“Then there’s really nothing holding you back,” Taehyun finishes, delivering a soft pat of assurance to the boy’s thigh._

_“I’m guessing this isn’t the best time to burst out into an extensive performance of a Shawn Mendes song?”_

_“Do you ever shut up? Like, ever?”_

_With that, Beomgyu’s previously tiny smile widens considerably and he raises his head from the confines of his palms to express his gratitude, which threatens to spill over because he quite literally has the best friends anyone could ever ask for._

_He’s met with three matching expressions of fondness and it takes a great amount of restraint not to tear up because goodness, he truly does have amazing friends._

_“Beomgyu,” Soobin is the one to speak this time, squeezing his hand softly before continuing, “it’s alright to feel things as they are, okay? Don’t ever force yourself to feel a particular way just because you think that’s what’s expected of you. Let things come naturally, yeah? It’ll all fall into place in the end, I promise.”_

The memory of his friends’ expressions of encouragement is all the incitement he needs. 

Fuelled by a sudden burst of courage, Beomgyu stalks confidently towards the sequestered spot Yeonjun has confined himself to, stopping only when he is right in front of him.

He then leans up on his tiptoes. 

And he kisses him.

He doesn’t know how he does it, really. He most likely owes it to the concoction of adrenaline, newfound valour and about a month’s worth of pent-up frustration bubbling within him, but still, he can’t fathom just where the bravery to peck his _crush_ square on the _lips_ came from. 

And he isn’t given the opportunity to ponder on it further, either, because Yeonjun is wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him in, forcing him to find purchase on the lapels of the older’s jacket to hold himself up. 

He isn’t given a single second to recover from the sudden change of events, because Yeonjun is kissing him again, and this time it’s _much more_ than just a peck. Beomgyu curls his fingers into the older’s jacket in an effort to ground himself because _goddamn,_ Choi Yeonjun is an aggressive kisser. 

They’re forced to pull apart because the human race hasn’t progressed past the need for oxygen yet, unfortunately, and as Beomgyu struggles to catch his breath, he feels a series of insistent tugs on the hoodie he’s wearing. (It’s Soobin’s.) 

“ _Off,_ ” is all Yeonjun says breathlessly, and the commanding edge to his voice leaves Beomgyu positively _reeling._ “I’ll give you one of mine, so _take it off,_ ” he finishes, his words gaining a whiny quality that gives Beomgyu enough room to relax into the older’s arms. 

“Hush, you big baby,” he chuckles warmly, silencing him with a soft peck. “I will eventually. For now, though, shut up and kiss me.” 

And Yeonjun complies gladly. 

Later, when they’re all cuddled up in Yeonjun’s bed, with Beomgyu now clad in one of the older boy’s sweaters (Soobin’s lies forgotten on the other bed), Beomgyu thinks that nothing can quite compare to the feeling of pure elation running through his veins.

“Hyung,” he mutters, the word wrapped with the warmth of sleep, as he places a hand on the arm that Yeonjun has wrapped around his waist securely, drawing arbitrary patterns onto his _boyfriend’s_ chest with the other. This, he decides, is his favourite place in the whole world. Right here, in the warmth of Yeonjun’s arms.

“Hm?” the blonde returns, equally as groggy. 

“I suppose we didn’t have to change roommates in the end after all, huh?” 

The laugh that bubbles past Yeonjun’s lips is music to Beomgyu’s ears. 

So ultimately, they do get their ‘happily ever after’s.

But like, together. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you’ve made it to the end, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read this, it really means a lot to me!
> 
> tbh this is almost entirely based on that one time on vlive where jun did that thing with his eyebrows and licked his lips when gyu got on his nerves, the rest of the fic is just built around it lol 
> 
> i sincerely hope you enjoyed reading because i poured a lot of effort into this fic ^^” comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, so do show some love if you liked this! 
> 
> edit: oh, just in case it wasn’t clear enough: hanlimz are first years, soob’s a second year and jun is in his third year! just to clear up any confusion 
> 
> i love the boys to pieces, so i’ll definitely be writing for this fandom again. until then! <3


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